just got back two days ago,, ( yes we had norovirus,, 200 Quarantined! )
Despite that, had a great time, went to Cabo, mazatlan, puerto vallarta, acapulco, Manzinillo, and Zihuatanao, ( spelt wrong, i know) I'll gladly answer anyones questions on the ports or the ship.

Can you tell us a little more about it ? We're doing that same cruise next week ! Did you do any shore excursion ? What did you particularly like or dislike, about the boat and the ports ? I'd love to read more about your experience !

hi, glad to help, here goes,,
the boat, all in all, a beautiful ship, the biggest fault i had with it ,, cigerette smoke, almost couldn't get away from it, the left side of the ship is mostly a smokong side, inside and out, which doesn't really work when your'e thrying to enjoy a drink in a longe area. The food was fab, got repeatative after a while but i'm ok with that. Ate in the dining room evrynite, main courses were yummy, salads got boring. deserts looked better than they tasted. staff were very helpful, although sometimes hard to understand, if your a drinker, spend some time with Veryl ( spelling) at the bar by the covered pool, he's great, makes you feel like a VIP everytime, has an incredible memory for names and facts,, and loves to talk to passengers! ( tell him Daryl and Debbie from Nanaimo said Hi ) cabins were very nice, quiet and clean.
Ports,
Loved them all, with the posslbe exception of Mazatlan. where we did do a good bus tour thru the ship, it was the concordia, copala one, if you want to see things outside the city this was fantastic.
We found mazatlan to be one if the poorest of the ports, but we also learned alot from our guide, which helped put things in perspective.
That was the only ship tour we did, the rest we did by ourselves, which is so easy to do, ( and we're nervous nellies ) cabs cost anywhere from 5 to 12 dollars depending on how fancy you get.
I have to sign off now, but i'll continue on later for you,i know i found all sorts of info useful on this website, i'll be in tough,,,

Loved them all, with the posslbe exception of Mazatlan. where we did do a good bus tour thru the ship, it was the concordia, copala one, if you want to see things outside the city this was fantastic.

Great Deborah, and thanks for all this very useful info ! I've learned a lot of things already thanks to this board, but it's great to read messages written by somebody who just did the cruise one week before ours (current weather and ship information).

We've booked a family stateroom, at the aft of the ship, I hope it's gonna be ok with the cigarette smoke. However, I feel a little disappointed because I read on this forum that this kind of stateroom might be noisy. I also heard that there was a deck right at our window, so so long for privacy. But anyway, the cabin will be bigger than usual ones, which is good as we are travelling with our 5 year-old.

I have already booked some excursions. We're not from the US nor Canada, as I guess you will have noticed by now ;-), and so we won't have many occasions to do such a big trip, and we'd like to live it to the full and see as much as we can. So far, we have booked :
- A scenic drive in Cabo San Lucas
- A City tour with cliff divers in Acapulco
- The Concordia/Copala tour in Mazatlan
- The Colima/Comala tour in Manzanillo

We plan on just strolling around in Puerto Vallarta and Zihuatanejo, as it seems these cities are beautiful in themselves. We also intend to do some of Acapulco by ourselves in addition to the tour. Maybe the Papaguayo Park, which seems great for kids according to travel guides, but about which I haven't read anything here. In Cabo San Lucas, if we have some time left after the excursion, we'll try to do a boat ride to Land's end.

I'm still a bit concerned about the dress code and the tipping as we are not familiar with these standards, but we'll see.

YRG,
Tipping, we pretty much did the suggested amounts, which are given out at the end of the trip, then we added cash in evelopes to those who went the extra mile, ( what ever you think, is what you should give) then we added extra tips to our bar bill in the evenings when it was warranted. ( Verrol,, bar at the back of the ship by the covered pool) Best bartender ever!!
Dress code, overall people dressed very well, if you under dressed, you sort of "stuck out" i didnt see anyone get turned away, although i did see people turn around on there on steam, and go get changed because they felt underdressed. Put it this way, formal nights you couldn't over dress for, informal was kinda all over the place, some still doing formal. Casual,, i personally didnt feel right showing up in shorts, i wore short skirts and tops, but i did see people in shorts, it just didnt seem to fit in with the rest of our dinner companions. After the fisrt nite , you'll get a feel for how the rest of your table dresses, use that as a guide, more so then the rest of the restaurant.
I didnt get where you were from, did i miss something ?
Feel free to ask anything else!

shipme,
Hi,
Overall i would say, all things considered passengers were good about things, especially since Mercury didnt announce anything official untill our last nite. Untill then it was gossip and hearsay, but you couldn't ignore all the signs, selfserve stations stopped completely, you had to ask for everthing all of a sudden. Staff walking around in surgical masks, and gloves spraying everything in sight. Carpets being scrubbed all thru out the day. talk of anyone feeling sick being quarantined for at least 48 hrs. Towards the end of our trip people were starting to get nervous, i think because no one had told us anything, what you did hear was from the staff in the dinning/bar areas. ( i must say, it didnt seem to affect most peoples appetites !! ) it did get so you wouldn't open a door without using a paper towel to cover it first though !
my husband and i spent a night in San Diego before flying home and thats when we saw in on the news and read it in the paper. Offically 200 were quarantined and they were confident they had it under controll for the next sail away !! ???
Best of luck to anyone on the trip, all i can say is, wash, wash, wash, and be careful where you put your hands!!

YRG,
Your english is excellent !
There are 3 formal, 3 informal, and 5 casual nites,. the first nite is always casual, and the second is formal, ( after that, i forget ).
There are 3 pools. 2 are side by side, in the main activity area, they seemed to always have different water temps, one cold, one warm, i believe that to be because of how they rotate emptying them. The pool at the back of the ship has a retractable roof, ( small pool ) but it was always covered on our trip, i dont know why, it was way to hot back there during the day!
As for children, we didnt have any with us, so i didnt pay to much attention to that, but as i recall there were hardly any teenagers, ( not a real party boat ) Most of the kids were 12 and under, with more babies than i expected to see. While i didnt have any first hand experience i think they have excellent activities for the kids, ( i didnt see too many running around the ship, so i think they were well entertained )

Great, thank you Deborahb. My husband was quite worried about the number of formal nights. Not that we want to go to the dining room in shorts, but because he does know if he's going to bring a suit or just rent a tux on the ship. I guess he'll need the suit. On the informal nights, is it OK for him to wear a buttoned shirt and no tie, or is a tie required ? And on the formal nights, is a suit and tie enough, or are most men in tuxedos ?

The problem with my kid is that he doesn't speak English, so I'm afraid I can forget the kids activities, but I wanted to know if there was a paddling pool and a slide or something fun for him.

How about the gym ? Is there a lot of equipment ? Is there any fitness or aerobic class ?

Hi YRG,
Yes there are a couple of paddling pools, beside the big pools,no slides though. There is an activity center for the kids where theres crafts and things but it's indoors i believe.
No tie on informal nites would be fine, we saw loads of gents dressed that way, so it wouldn't be odd at all. On our last cruise my husband rented a tux, we found it to be very reasonable in price and very conveniant because it comes all ready to wear in your staeroom and so you dont have to pack it in your luggage. This cruise he took a suit and there were plenty of those about! I would say there were more suits then tuxs. If you chose to have anything laundered or ironed, plan it a day ahead for a better price, very reasonable, otherwise they;ll charge more for same day service.
The gym, a fair amount of equipment and they offer fitclasses, i didnt see any aerobics classes ( my favourite) and the speciality classes ( ie, Spin) they have a surcharge for, i jogged instead, didnt like to pay any surcharges!!!!

Hi, Yes there is soap, shampoo and pretty much all the basics in the bathroom, ie, cottonballs, Q tips, kleenex etc.
we had np problems with bugs of any kind,so we didnt use any repellant, but bring the sunscreen and anything like imodium and gravol, our ship ran out of there supplies because so many people ended up sick with the norovirus..
We had a stateroom with a large window, no balcony, it was great but only had one electrical outlet, so that was bit of a challenge at times.
Yes the ship does provide beach towels but there very heavy tpo pack around, we ended up only ever taking one to the beach, you almost dont need one anyway, we used it mostly for sitting on! At the end of the trip make sure you have two beach towels in your room ( our guy kept taking ours to clean and forgot to bring them back,,( more than once,) the ship will charge you $ 28 if you dont have two at the end ot the trip . ( $28 each )